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Blocked tunnel may save brown bears

French environmentalists claimed victory last week in the name of the
few remaining brown bears living in the Pyrenees. A court in Pau, which
lies in the French foothills, has blocked government plans to start construction
of an 8-kilometre tunnel at one end of the Aspe Valley, near a national
park.

The Somport tunnel was to be partly subsidised by the European Community.
It is part of a larger four-year-old Franco-Spanish plan to build a fast
link between the two countries. An estimated 1000 trucks per day would use
the tunnel, knocking two hours off the present driving time.

The court said that the French government had failed to follow a 1985
Community directive stipulating that the impact on the environment of large
construction projects must be investigated before they begin. The French
government had only studied where to site the tunnel and the road. Shortly
after the court decision, environment minister Segolene Royal issued a statement
saying an impact study would be done on the entire route between Zaragoza
and Pau.

The court decision appears to have created a rift within the government.
Local politicians, who strongly support the project, met the public works
minister Jean-Louis Bianco. They emerged triumphant, saying the government
would appeal against the decision. But then Royal said it would not. Michel
Inchauspe, a local MP, says he will continue to lobby the government to
appeal because of the enormous economic benefits the pass will bring.

While local residents fear their tranquillity would be shattered by
the tunnel, opposition centres mainly on the plight of the bears still living
in the Pyrenees. Estimates put the number of Ursus arctos at about 13. Local
biologist Jean-Michel Parde says that there were once 1000 bears in the
Pyrenees. By 1870 their numbers had declined rapidly because of hunting.
Laws to protect the bears were not enforced until the 1960s. ‘The bears
can get used to farmers, who have seasonal habits, but not to the leisure
activities of tourists who run all over the mountains,’ he says.